Senate Passes Budget Draft

May 1, 1985|By Dorothy Collin, Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — President Reagan and the Republican leadership won a razor-thin preliminary victory in the 1986 budget battle Tuesday night when the Senate gave tentative approval in a test vote on the controversial Republican spending proposal.

But the 50-49 vote is far from the final one on the budget, which can be amended and could be replaced by another budget package.

``It sets the parameters about where we want to finish,`` said Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., after the vote.

Predictably, Democratic critics took a dim view of the package, detailing what they said would be a disastrous result for farmers, Social Security recipients and others. The three-year curtailment of Social Security benefits will ``drive another half a million people into poverty`` by 1988, said Sen. Donald Riegle, D-Mich.

The $969 billion plan calls for reducing the deficit by $52 billion in fiscal 1986 and $297 billion over three years. If nothing were done, the deficit is projected to be $227 billion in fiscal 1986.

The package would limit Social Security cost-of-living adjustments to 2 percent for three years, allow 3 percent growth in military spending over three years after accounting for inflation and eliminate or reduce almost 50 popular domestic programs, including Amtrak subsidies, the Small Business Administration and college-student loans.

The vote came after a fourth day of manuevering and meetings aimed at winning the preliminary test and working out compromises on amendments that are expected to be offered this week.

As the roll call proceeded, even Dole wasn`t sure he was going to win, he said later. Asked how he won, he said, ``Barely.`` He lost 2 Republicans who voted with all 47 Democrats against the plan.

But Dole was able to wheedle and deal with several other reluctant Republicans to go along on what the leadership portrayed as a procedural vote.

Sen. Mark Andrews, R-N.D., who referred to the budget plan as a ``turkey,`` said he agreed to vote for it after Dole and the administration agreed not to kill the Rural Electrification Administration.

Sen. Lowell Weicker, R-Conn., was able to get $221 million in additional education funds for the handicapped put into the plan before the vote.

Senators Alfonse D`Amato, R-N.Y., and Paula Hawkins, R-Fla., voted for the plan after Dole told them they would have first shot at restoring the full Social Security cost-of-living allowance (COLA).

Florida`s other senator, Democrat Lawton Chiles, voted against the package.

Dole and Democratic leaders tussled before the vote over Dole using the majority leader`s power to give Republicans the first chance at Social Security.

``We Democrats have wanted to offer amendments restoring the Social Security COLA,`` said Sen. Robert Byrd, W. Va., the minority leader.

Democrats have regarded their concern for the politically sensitive issue of Social Security as one of their strengths, and have often used it against Republican candidates. Byrd accused Dole of playing ``hard ball`` in the Social Security wrangle.

The two Republicans who did not vote with the leaders were Sen. Charles Mathias, R-Md., who said last week that he would not support the proposal as long as tax increases were ruled off limits; and Sen. Robert Kasten, R-Wis., who was known to be unhappy about several provisions in the plan.